ICX6610-24P

Brocade ICX 6610 Switch

The Brocade ICX 6610 Switch redefines the economics of enterprise networking by providing unprecedented levels of performance, availability, and flexibility in a stackable form factor—delivering the capabilities of a chassis with the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of a stackable switch.

Chassis-Like Capabilities in a Stackable Form Factor

Today’s enterprise networks are expected to deliver services thought impossible just a few years ago. High-Definition (HD) video conferencing, real-time collaboration, Unified Communications (UC), and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) are only a few of the applications that organizations are deploying to enhance employee productivity, improve customer service, and create a competitive advantage. These same networks must also provide anytime, anywhere mobile access and scale to meet rising user expectations. At the same time, organizations face continued pressure to reduce costs and do more with less. More than ever, campus networks need to quickly and efficiently evolve with the ever-changing business environment

Class-Leading Performance for Today and Tomorrow

The Brocade ICX 6610 helps organizations meet this challenge by delivering wire-speed, non-blocking performance across all ports to support latency-sensitive applications such as real-time voice/video streaming and VDI. Brocade ICX 6610 Switches can be stacked using four full-duplex 40 Gbps stacking ports that provide an unprecedented 320 Gbps of backplane stacking bandwidth with full redundancy, eliminating inter-switch bottlenecks. Additionally, each switch can provide up to eight 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports for high-speed connectivity to the aggregation or core layers.

Non-Stop High Availability

When every second matters, Brocade ICX 6610 Switches help deliver continuous availability to optimize the user experience. Brocade stacking technology delivers high availability, performing real-time state synchronization across the stack and enabling instantaneous hitless failover to a standby controller in the unlikely event of a failure of the master stack controller. Organizations also can use hot-insertion/removal of stack members to avoid interrupting service when adding a switch to increase the capacity of a stack or replacing a switch that needs servicing.

Unmatched Simplicity and Investment Protection

The Brocade ICX 6610 is easy to deploy, manage, and integrate into both new and existing networks. Organizations can buy only what they need today and easily scale up as demand grows and new technologies emerge.

The flexibility of a stackable switch allows organizations to forgo investing in a chassis upfront and put precious capital to better use elsewhere. Organizations can purchase an initial switch to get started and add a new Brocade ICX 6610 Switch to the stack as their business grows.

Built for the Most Demanding Network Environments

Brocade stacking technology makes it possible to stack up to eight Brocade ICX 6610 Switches into a single logical chassis switch, providing simple and robust expandability for future growth at the network edge or aggregation layer. Also, this stacked virtual switch has only a single IP address to simplify management, and offers transparent forwarding across a pool of up to 384 1 GbE and 64 10 GbE ports. When new switches are added to the stack, they automatically inherit the stack’s existing configuration file, enabling true plug-and-play network expansion.

Brocade stacking technology also delivers high availability, performing real-time state synchronization across the stack and enabling instantaneous hitless failover to a standby controller, if the master stack controller fails. In addition, organizations can use hot-insertion/removal of stack members to avoid interrupting service.

Brocade ICX 6610 Switches offer four dedicated full-duplex 40 Gbps stacking ports that provide full redundancy and an unprecedented 320 Gbps of stacking bandwidth, essentially eliminating the need to work around inter-switch bottlenecks.

Unlike competitive offerings that use proprietary stacking ports, the use of standard 40 Gbps QSFP ports offers optimum flexibility and future-proofing. These dedicated stacking ports free up the 10 GbE ports for high-speed connectivity to the aggregation or core layers.

Up to Eight 10 GbE Ports on Demand per Switch

Brocade ICX 6610 Switches offer eight dual-mode Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP)/SFP+ ports, enabling high-bandwidth connectivity to the aggregation or core layers. These ports can be upgraded from 1 GbE to 10 GbE by simply applying a software license, eliminating the need to install a hardware module. In addition, organizations can aggregate these ports across the stack to provide high-speed, redundant links between the wiring closet and the aggregation layer, or between the aggregation and the core layer. With the ability to use short-range and long-range optics, along with copper Twinax cables, the Brocade ICX 6610 supports flexible and cost-effective network architectures.

The Brocade ICX 6610 delivers industry-leading 8-port 10 GbE density in a 1U switch, providing up to 80 Gbps of uplink bandwidth to the aggregation or core layers of the network. This bandwidth enables a 1:1 subscription ratio throughout the network. As a result, organizations can deploy highly utilized networks to avoid congestion during peak hours.

Built to Power Next-Generation Edge Devices

The Brocade ICX 6610 can deliver both power and data across network connections, providing a single-cable solution for the latest edge devices. Brocade ICX 6610 Switches are compatible with industry-standard VoIP equipment as well as legacy IP phones. In addition, they support the Power over Ethernet (PoE+) standard (802.3at) to provide up to 30 watts of power to each device. This high-powered solution simplifies wiring for next-generation edge devices, such as video conferencing and Voice over IP (VoIP) phones, pan/tilt surveillance cameras, and 802.11n wireless Access Points (APs). The PoE capability reduces the number of power receptacles and power adapters while increasing reliability and wiring flexibility. With a 1500-watt power budget per switch (with two power supplies), the Brocade ICX 6610 24- and 48-port PoE models can supply up to Class 4 PoE+ (30 watts) power to every port.

Plug-and-Play Operations for Powered Devices

The Brocade ICX 6610 supports the IEEE 802.1AB Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) and ANSI TIA 1057 Link Layer Discovery Protocol-Media Endpoint Discovery (LLDP-MED) standards that enable organizations to deploy interoperable multivendor solutions for UC. Configuring IP endpoints such as VoIP phones can be a complex task, requiring manual and time-consuming configuration. LLDP and LLDP-MED address this challenge by providing a standard, open method for configuring, discovering, and managing network infrastructure. The LLDP protocols also help reduce operational costs by simplifying and automating network operations. For example, LLDP-MED provides an open protocol for configuring Quality of Service (QoS), security policies, Virtual LAN (VLAN) assignments, PoE power levels, and service priorities.

Flexible Cooling Options

All Brocade ICX 6610 Switches support reversible front-to-back airflow options. This data-center friendly design improves mounting flexibility in racks, while adhering to the cooling guidelines of the hosting environment. Organizations can specify airflow direction at the time of order and can reverse the direction after deployment by swapping the power supplies and fan assembly.

SDN-Enabled Programmatic Control of the Network

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a powerful new network paradigm designed for the world’s most demanding networking environments and promises breakthrough levels of customization, scale, and efficiency. The Brocade ICX 6610 enables SDN by supporting the OpenFlow 1.3 protocol, which allows communication between an OpenFlow controller and an OpenFlow-enabled switch. Using this approach, organizations can control their networks programmatically, transforming the network into a platform for innovation through new network applications and services. The Brocade ICX 6610 delivers OpenFlow in true hybrid port mode. With Brocade hybrid port mode, organizations can simultaneously deploy traditional Layer 2/3 forwarding with OpenFlow on the same port. This unique capability provides a pragmatic path to SDN by enabling network administrators to progressively integrate OpenFlow into existing networks, giving them the programmatic control offered by SDN for specific flows while the remaining traffic is forwarded as before. Brocade ICX 6610 hardware support for OpenFlow enables organizations to apply these capabilities at line rate.

The Brocade ICX 6610 operates seamlessly under the Brocade Vyatta Controller. This controller is a quality-assured edition of the OpenDaylight controller code supported by an established networking provider and its leaders within the OpenDaylight community.

Simplified, Secure Standards-based Management and Monitoring

The Brocade ICX 6610 provides simplified, standards-based management capabilities that help organizations reduce administrative time and effort while securing their networks.

Simplified Deployment with Auto-Configuration

The Brocade ICX 6610 supports auto-configuration, simplifying deployment with a truly plug-and-play experience. Organizations can use this feature to automate IP address and feature configuration of the switches without requiring a highly trained network engineer onsite. When the switches power up, they automatically receive an IP address and configuration from DHCP and Trivial File Transport Protocol (TFTP) servers. At this time, the switches can also automatically receive a software update to be at the same code revision as currently installed switches.

Open-Standards Management

The Brocade ICX 6610 includes an industry-standard Command Line Interface (CLI) and supports Secure Shell (SSHv2), Secure Copy (SCP), and SNMPv3 to restrict and encrypt management communications to the system. In addition, support for Terminal Access Controller Access Control System (TACACS/TACACS+) and RADIUS authentication helps ensure secure operator access.

Out-of-Band Management

The Brocade ICX 6610 includes a 10/100/1000 Mbps RJ-45 Ethernet port dedicated to out-of-band management, providing a remote path to manage the switches, regardless of the status or configuration of the data ports.

Data Center ToR for 1 GbE and 10 GbE Server Connectivity

Thanks to its class-leading 10 GbE port count, the Brocade ICX 6610 is an ideal solution as a Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch in a mixed 1 GbE/10 GbE server connectivity environment. It is designed to fit in server racks, consuming only one rack unit and offering dual integrated power supplies and fan assemblies with reversible front-to-back/back-to-front airflow for flexible cooling options. In data center environments where most servers have 1 GbE and some 10 GbE network interfaces, the Brocade ICX 6610 provides a compact and cost-effective 1 GbE/10 GbE ToR switch. This configuration uses 10 GbE links to connect to Brocade ICX data center aggregation switches.

Managing enterprise campus networks continues to become more complex due to the growth in services that rely on wired and wireless networks. Services such as Internet, e-mail, video conferencing, real-time collaboration, and distance learning all have specific configuration and management requirements. At the same time, organizations face increasing demand to provide uninterrupted services for high-quality voice and Unified Communications (UC), wireless mobility, and multimedia applications.

To reduce complexity and the time spent managing these environments, the easy-to-use Brocade Network Advisor discovers, manages, and deploys configurations to groups of IP devices. By using Brocade Network Advisor, organizations can configure Virtual LANs (VLANs) within the network, manage wireless access points, and execute commands on specific IP devices or groups of IP devices. sFlow-based proactive monitoring is ideal for performing network-wide troubleshooting, generating traffic reports, and gaining visibility into network activity from the edge to the core. Brocade Network Advisor centralizes management of the entire family of Brocade wired products and Aruba wireless products.